Hotel room with a view crowned as Scotland's most striking panorama

A hotel in South Lanarkshire has beaten competition from around the country to be crowned Scotland’s most beautiful Window with a View.

With its warm welcome, period features, and regular folk sessions, the Hopetoun Arms is the quintessential village bolthole.

But now the South Lanarkshire hotel and bar has added another string to its bow after being announced as having the window with the best view in all of Scotland.

The family-run hostelry is located in the heart of Lead-hills, the former mining village once abundant in lead, silver, and gold.

It also has the unique claim of being the highest residential hotel in Scotland, sitting some 1,297 feet above sea level, looking down over one of the most striking areas of the Southern Uplands.

For Rab Campbell, owner of the Hopetoun Arms, such a distinctive – if quirky – selling point offered inspiration during a recent renovation.

The skylight windows in the hotel were lowered to offer a bracing panorama of the village, near Biggar, and the surrounding Lowther Hills.

Mr Campbell, who runs the hotel with his wife, Rachel, was pleased with the changes, but was surprised when a few months ago, he received word that the Hopetoun Arms was in the running for a national competition.

Unbeknownst to him, Nigel Keith from Huddersfield, a regular visitor to the hotel, had taken a photograph of the view and submitted it to the Window with a View contest.

Yesterday, word reached Mr Campbell that the Hopetoun Arms had seen off Banchory Lodge in Aberdeenshire and Ocean Park in Aberdeen to win the Scottish heat. Mr Keith’s image will now go up against nine other regional winners for the UK title.

“Nigel comes up here twice a year, but we didn’t even know he had taken the photo let alone entered it in a competition,” Mr Campbell explained. “It was a lovely surprise, and it’s great publicity for us, because there’s no doubt that our view is one of our big attractions.

“The window where the photograph was taken used to be higher up, and if there was a blizzard and the window was open, the room would fill up with snow.”

James Lee, director of marketing at MyGlazing.com, a glazing federation, said: “We’d like to say a huge congratulations to The Hopetoun Arms for being voted Scotland’s best Window with a View. It truly is a great feat given the standard of entries we received this year.”

• You can view the finalists and vote for your favourite image here: https://www.myglazing.com/window-with-a-view/region/finalists/

Words: Martyn Mclaughlin